The present invention relates to modulation amplifiers, and more particularly to a low-power, high-modulation-index amplifier suitable for use in battery-powered devices, e.g., an implantable battery-powered medical device.
Modulation is the process of varying some characteristic of one wave in accordance with another wave. In radio broadcasting, for example, some stations use amplitude modulation (AM), while other stations use frequency modulation (FM). In television, the video portion of the program is amplitude modulated and the audio portion is frequency modulation. In other types of transmissions, such as are used with satellite transmissions or transmissions to and from an implantable medical device, some sort of digital modulation is typically employed, e.g., pulse-amplitude, pulse-code, pulse-duration, pulse-frequency, pulse-position, or pulse-time modulation. These types of digital modulation are typically employed to convey binary bit information, e.g., strings of 1's and 0's, arranged in words and bytes.
A class of small implantable medical devices is known in the art that comprises tiny microstimulators and/or sensors. These tiny microstimulators or sensors, which are hereafter referred to as BION™ devices, are described more fully, e.g., in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,193,539; 5,193,540 and PCT Publications WO 98/37926; WO 98/43700 WO 98/43701, each of which patents or publications are incorporated herein by reference. Advantageously, the BION devices are generally small enough to be implanted in a minimally invasive manner through the lumen of a needle, or a similar-sized cannula.
It has been discovered that the sharpness (rise time and/or fall time) of the pulsed modulation used with the BION device has a direct affect on the reliability of the operation of the BION device, and more particularly on the ability of the BION device to properly decode and validate commands. Disadvantageously, the sharp rise times and fall times of the pulsed modulation signals needed for reliable operation of a BION-type device have heretofore required the use of high power modulation amplifiers. High power modulation amplifiers, in turn, are not compatible with the low power requirements of an implantable medical device systems, particularly systems that include battery-powered devices. There is thus a need in the art for a low power modulation amplifier having sharp rise/fall times that may be used within an implantable device system, such as a system that uses the BION device described in the referenced patents and patent applications.